Backups and External Hardrives

[HDFan]

Hmm, so are you saying it would be good to use both Time Machine, plus another external hardrive and do it manually on that?

yes, as below

2. Implement a 3-2-1 backup strategy

1. Yes. Your 3-2-1 backups ideally should be on 3 different media types.

2. TM backups tend to fail so it can only be one of the 3 backup copies. The other 2 could be one CCC and one backup service, such as BackBlaze. iCloud doesn't count.

3. Since you should be placing one copy 0ff-site, such as a bank vault, it doesn't make sense to backup to SSDs due to their expense. You back it up, and then put than expensive hardware in a vault where it isn't used. Generally hard disks are better for backups than SSDs, although there are times when SSDs would be needed. Not cost effective yet.

 

[Ruggy]

Firstly, it depends how much you've got to back up and how often it changes.
If it's mostly photos, emails and messages then by far the simplest method is just using icloud.
It'll do everything for you automatically and it isn't that expensive. I think it's even still free up to a certain limit
But on top of that I back up docs and photos once in a while to an external drive depending on how much new stuff I've created and I keep it simple. Mac OS has something called 'Versions' as well so it will autosave and also keep previous versions of the document on the machine you can go back to.
I use exFat as the drive format and simple drag and drop. (And it should be exFat rather than FAT32 because FAT32 doesn't handle big drives well if at all).
It's really not a big deal to do this even daily because with a cheap SSD it will transfer a ton of data really fast.
The really big SSD are quite expensive so check the best price point because 2 or 3 smaller drives may well be much cheaper and give you better protection (as they won't all fail at once).
The spinning HD are even cheaper and just take a bit longer which isn't a problem with a bit of planning. You don't have to stand over them
A combination of icloud and the occasional back up is probably enough especially if you take the 'little and often' approach.
I backed up my wife's icloud photos to an SSD the other day and I think it backed up about 6000 photos and videos in about 15 minutes.
There is a huge advantage to doing it this way because your files will be saved individually and be readable by just about anything including a Windows machine.
When you use Time machine- or most other backups- they create a file called a 'sparse bundle' which lumps everything together and is only readable by that program.
Great as long as it works but if you have a problem with it and then need to extract something it's utterly useless.
And that does happen especially when you most need it because if your machine is dead you have to create an identical user ID on the new machine otherwise you won't have permission to read anything (unless it's changed in the last few years of course but I doubt it). I've had that happen.
So for maximum protection, save it in a format everything can read and where you can find what you need when you need it.
Also you asked a question about SSD. They are way more reliable than spinning HD which can die in as little as 2 years or just by turning the power off.
They are pretty much the same as the little SD cards which are indestructible (We've had them go through the wash and my son used one as a gardening implement)
Don't get hung about it and keep it simple as at least one other person has said.

 

[macdos]

I use exFat as the drive format and simple drag and drop. (And it should be exFat rather than FAT32 because FAT32 doesn't handle big drives well if at all).

Huh?? Macs use APFS and HFS…

 

[HDFan]

They are way more reliable than spinning HD which can die in as little as 2 years or just by turning the power off.

Disks can have a 10x greater lifetime than SSDs, but it is very drive and SSD dependent.

They are pretty much the same as the little SD cards which are indestructible

SD cards are rugged, but they do fail like any other electronic device.

 

[mikzn]

Huh?? Macs use APFS and HFS…

I use FAT32 formatted drives for "folder to folder" back up of media files and to allow access from Windows

This works with Mojave & CCC5 and also Monterey CCC6 - I do this weekly

Of course they are not bootable and are not clones

 

[eelpout]

I'm about to duplicate/clone one of my HDD's to an SDD (photograph images mostly).

I'm trying to avoid TimeMachine, ArqBackup and Code42(CrashPlan) from thinking this is a new drive they have to backup and I want them to think it's the same drive. I'm assuming CCC or SuperDuper doing a straight clone would do this? Would I have to keep the same drive formatting, which I'm pretty sure is ExFAT.

 

[HDFan]

I'm trying to avoid TimeMachine, ArqBackup and Code42(CrashPlan) from thinking this is a new drive they have to backup and I want them to think it's the same drive. I'm assuming CCC or SuperDuper doing a straight clone would do this? Would I have to keep the same drive formatting, which I'm pretty sure is ExFAT.

1. You can ignore files to be backed up in TM and Crashplan.

2. The format doesn't matter as long as (1) it is supported by the cloning program as well as any system that will be reading the disk and (2) it supports all of the file attributes that you need.

3. Not necessary to a clone of the entire drive. If you just want to copy photographs just backup the pictures folders.

 

[Fishrrman]

eel wrote in reply 31 above:
"I'm about to duplicate/clone one of my HDD's to an SDD (photograph images mostly). "

Then you want to use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days.

Don't "overthink" this.
Just download either (or both) of them, get a spare drive (can be either platter-based HDD or SSD), and give it a try.

That's really all there is to it.